Kent's Failing Schools

Ed Balls needs to be replaced with an academy.

He has found that 33 schools in Kent are failing because 70% of their pupils get less than 5 GCSE. Kent has the highest number of any authority in the country and Ed Balls wants to replace these schools with academies. Interestingly a third of the countries academies are failing too.

What he seems to have missed is that Kent selects the kids that have higher academic abilities and puts them into grammar schools. It then puts those who have other talents into secondary schools and these are then labeled as failing due to the kid not being quite as good with the academic subjects.

Once they have been shown to fail, the teachers are sacked, the school privatised and the kids stigmatised. Hmmm... I sense a problem.

Scrap the selective system now! Abolish the academies now! Return schools to local people, local communities and local accountability.